Your Pet Peeves Regarding Famous Books

[DATo]

gtwilliams - Great post ! The longer I read your post the more I became aware of all I had missed too. I suppose we get wrapped up in the story the first time we read it, and are moving so fast that we don't see the obvious.

Also, though I congratulate Rowling on a seminal idea (kid wizards) and do not begrudge her the success she has achieved, there were times in the last installment that I thought Frodo and Samwise would pop up - it smacked so closely to Lord Of The Rings - The Return Of The King. No one is going to convince me that she did not borrow heavily from Tolkien at least in that last book. There seems to be a lot of that going around ... watch Avatar and think of Dances With Wolves as you watch it and you will see that it is the very same story told in a different setting.

[jthwilliams]

True. You have reminded me of a pet peeve that drives me nuts with a lot of stories and is also throughout the HP series.

Unnecessary gate keepers

There are at least 3 characters, Snape, Mcgonagall and Fitch, who quite often act to unnecessarily block Harry from passing information to Dumbledore or others. Now part of this is part of the story line of Adults failing to take kids seriously, but these same three characters gets used in this role over and over again. You think that at some point Dumbledore would take his senior staff aside and say, “Hey, I know kids can be stupid at times, but if Harry tries to tell me something, let me know. “ Or after the 3rd time that failing to take Harry seriously had massive negative consequences that they would take it on their own initiative to at least listen to what he has to say before dismissing it.

This is not a HP problem. Lots of authors create Gatekeeper characters to prevent the hero from looping in the police or otherwise use societies structures to solve a problem rather than trying to solve it themselves, but there is a gatekeeper who is reasonable and then there is the gatekeeper who is just ridiculous.

Also, in HP, Snape has no excuse for not passing on everything Harry ever said to him. His character motivation is weak in the first place, but let’s just assume that he is psychologically damaged enough to hate a kid because of what his dead father and mother did to him when they were kids. Well, he still in Dumbledore’s inner circle and knows what is at stake. He is in fact Dumbledore’s secret agent from the start. So he should have listened to everything Harry ever said and even if he pretended to dismiss it out of hand and make fun of him, he should have passed on every word to Dumbledore. He had no excuse for not taking it seriously.

Also why is Dumbledore letting someone this messed up work with children? Don’t get me wrong, I understand why he keeps him around, but there have got to be place where he could work and not be a teacher. I mean Snape’s poor behavior becomes clear in order of the phoenix and while you might work with a psychologically damaged person to beat an enemy you are unlikely to give them real power to make unsupervised decisions over others.

[ohiojerry]

Not a particular book but as a gun guy, it irritates me when authors don't bother to do their firearms homework.

For example: revolvers do not have a safety (Glocks don't either), for the most part, the thing that holds the bullets is a magazine, not a "clip", and the part you hold onto is a grip or stock, not a handle.

If you don't want to take the time to be accurate, don't include guns in your books.

[DaoJones]

I just thought, and pardon me for assuming, a classic was something read by the people who are living when the book was first published and then read by succeeding generations so that the book is always in demand and not just forgotten about.

I mean people still read Dickens over a hundred years after initial publication. Not every author enjoys that kind of popularity. There must be something that continues to resonate with the reader that makes them want to pursue those books. I don't think you can artificially make a book a classic. People are willing to read it or they're not.

I'm not saying this is what defines a classic, just that it was what I assumed defined a classic.

[jthwilliams]

@ohiojerry. This isn't limited to guns. As far as I can tell it is true about every specialty knowledge area. Books tend to be bad, but TV is much worse for doing this too. I know for a fact that areas that I have a level of expertise in such as philosophy, computers, and technology are always badly represented in books. In most books the author has done some research or worked with people who understand the subject but there are many movies or TV shows that I have problems watching because of the errors. While I have no specialized knowledge of guns, I can see how that could affect you.

I have friends who are lawyers who tell me that can’t reed John Grisham books or watch Law & Order for the same reasons.

There are two things here however. First, I don’t think it is actually possible to become an expert in every area that is part of their story, particularly if it is only a minor part. In a very real sense, they have to give a close approximation based on their understanding of general topics and move on. Second, even if an author was an expert on everything the general public would be bored to tears over the detail that would be needed to make sure they got things right.

Heck, hacking is an extremely boring and intensive process. It takes weeks, and months and involves a lot of waiting. You certainly wouldn’t try it in an emergency. Any book that tried to reflect that accurately would not be able to use their computer genius as part of the climax to solve the problem just in time.

@DaoJones yeah that is just about the same mental definition I have had for classic. If people are still reading it 100 to 200 years after it was published, I would consider it a classic even if others would not.

[Fran]

@jthwilliams
I think you are absolutely right .... there is a reason it's called Fiction!
Your definition of a Classic I also agree with ... IMO it's about longevity & survival.

@ohiojerry
Your post reminded me of all those who criticise Moby-Dick for having way too much detail about whaling ... you really can't win!

[DATo]

I'm glad to find that this topic has sparked such active and interesting discussion.

ohiojerry - We must give the Austrians their due. Actually, the Glock has more than one internal safety. I was shown a Glock once that had been dropped about 300 feet from a helicopter onto concrete and did not discharge. It was given to the gun range where I saw it and the owner of the range told me that customers, up to the time we were having the discussion, had put over 500,000 rounds through it and the safety still worked. I agree with you though in the sense that the Glock does not have the type of lever safety that one finds on most automatic handguns. The equivalent of the mechanical safety used by the operator is a slightly elevated portion of the trigger. The finger comes into contact with this raised portion first and as it is depressed in the commission of pulling the trigger the finger eventually makes contact with the "trigger proper" making it a "weapon's live" condition. Glocks have an outstanding safety record which is why many law enforcement agencies use them.

I include this only to point out that if a person were to think that a Glock had no safety, (and to the untrained eye it does not) and that this point was important in a fictional story, he or she might consider this a plot hole or gaff, but in reality the producer of the story was presenting information that was entirely correct. Perhaps an author can become TOO technically proficient with esoteric information *LOL*.

DaoJones - I think your definition of "classic" is right on the mark. I don't think it could be expressed better. I sometimes hear or read the expression "instant classic"; wouldn't that be an oxymoron just like "new and improved", which we often hear in advertising? How can something be an instant classic, and how can one improve on something that is new?

[deragoku]

The protagonist goes on and on his observation and trained rats. And then how he can not determine their gender complain.

[DATo]

The protagonist goes on and on his observation and trained rats. And then how he can not determine their gender complain.

I know exactly how you feel. I must have said the same thing a thousand times before.

[hdg1822]

In the Eve Duncan series by Iris Johansen there was a major plot change that drive me crazy. In the first book Eve said that she told the man that had gotten her pregnant and he told her to take care of it. After that in the series she always said that she never told him that she was pregnant! A pretty major point considering the last three books focused on them thinking he killed the daughter!! Drove me crazy.